quietly. Not that I disliked her. It was only that because of her loneliness and my compassion for her, an encounter could represent a ten- to twenty-minute delay. But I wasn’t quiet enough that morning. As I locked my door, I heard hers open.
“Excuse me,” she whispered. “Is anyone there?”
“Hi, Victoria. Good morning,” I said, heading toward the stairs.
Victoria was as thin and pale as a slip of paper. Her inevitable flowered housedress hung off her as if it were still on the hanger. At some point, her hair had been replaced by a slate gray wig that looked as if she’d been at it with a pair of scissors. The skin on her face was deeply lined and sagged like melted wax. She claimed proudly, at least once every time I saw her, that she still had her own teeth. Unfortunately, she only had five or six of them. She whispered rather than spoke, as though she was afraid others were waiting at their doors the way she did. I always liked Victoria, though we generally had the same conversation every day and she never from day to day remembered who I was. She’d tell me of her three brothers, all police officers now dead. She’d tell me how she never meant to stay in the apartment that she once shared with her mother, also now dead, but she somehow just never got around to moving.
“Oh, if my brothers were still alive…” she said this particular morning, her voice trailing off. “They were police officers, you know.”
“They must have been very brave,” I answered, looking longingly at the staircase but walking toward her instead. Of all the responses I’d given her over the years, she seemed to like that one the most.
“Oh, yes,” she said with a widening smile. “Very.”
I could just see a sliver of her through the door she had opened only a few inches, her housedress with tiny purple flowers, her stockinged leg, her gray orthopedic shoe.
Victoria lived in a time capsule of antique furniture and drawn shades. There was not an item in her apartment that wasn’t older than I was by at least fifty years, everything worn with time and wear, most of it covered in dust, all of it so heavy, so rooted that it seemed never to have been moved. Heavy oak armoires and bureaus, brocade couches and wing chairs, gilded mirrors, a baby grand topped with a clutter of yellowed photographs. I went in only when I’d gone grocery shopping for her or to change her lightbulbs. I couldn’t leave there without carrying out some of her sadness and loneliness with me like a cloak. There was a smell that I’ve come to think of as life rot. Where a life has spoiled, gone bad through lack of use.
I used to wonder what choices she’d made in her life to wind up with no one at the end. It’s something I think about now more than ever, like I mentioned: choices. The little ones, the big ones. Maybe once, like me, she had a perfectly wonderful man in love enough with her to propose marriage; maybe she, like me, had turned him down for reasons unclear even to her. Maybe that was the first choice that led her to this life.
She had a niece who came in occasionally from Long Island (feathered hair, three-quarter-length red wool coat, sensible shoes), an in-home caregiver who came three times a week (different people all the time, carrying themselves with as much energy and enthusiasm as pallbearers), and a couple times I’d seen people from Meals on Wheels. I lived in that building for more than ten years, and I’d never seen her leave the apartment. To me, it seemed as though she
“Well, if they were still alive, they certainly wouldn’t stand for all the noise coming from upstairs,” she warbled, her voice sounding like a top that was about to lose its spin.
I’d heard him, too, the new guy moving his things up the stairs the night before. I hadn’t been curious enough to poke my head out.
“He’s just moving in, Victoria. Don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll quiet down soon.”
“Did you know I still have all my own teeth?”
“That’s wonderful,” I said with a smile.
“You seem like such a nice girl,” she answered. “What’s your name?”
“Ridley. I live right next door if you need anything.”
“That’s an odd name for a pretty girl,” she said, baring her gums. I waved and went on my way.
Gray stone stairs and walls, a red banister, and black-and-white tile floors led me downstairs. On the second floor, the fluorescent light overhead flickered and went black, then came back to life. All the building lighting did this; it was a major electrical problem that my landlord, Zelda, appeared to have no intention of fixing.
“What? You think I got money to have the goddamn building rewired? Want me to raise your rent?” she said when I complained. That pretty much put an end to that; I just made sure nothing in the apartment blocked my way to the fire escape.
On the ground floor, in the narrow hallway that leads to the gated vestibule, there was a note on my mailbox, which I hadn’t visited since Friday out of sheer laziness.
You’re saying to yourself, Do I need to know all of this, all the minutiae of her leaving the building? But these two encounters, the tiny choices I made heading out to the street, changed everything. If I was a different kind of person, I might not have paused to talk to Victoria. Or perhaps I would have paused longer. I could have walked right by my mailbox, not seen or ignored the note from my mailman. It’s all these choices that we could have made, the things we might have done. We see them with perfect clarity only long after the moment has passed. Just thirty seconds either way, and I wouldn’t have this story to tell you. I wouldn’t be the same person telling it.
More small decisions on the street. I was running late, so instead of making a right and walking to TriBeCa (admittedly a long walk, but definitely doable if you have enough time), I walked to the curb to hail a cab. It was there that I saw them. A young mother with auburn hair pulled into a tight, high ponytail, one baby in a stroller, the other, a toddler, held by the hand, waiting at the light. There was nothing unusual about them really, I mean nothing that most people would notice. It was just the contrast to Victoria that struck me, the beauty and energy of these young lives compared to the sad and lonely twilight of the other I had just encountered.
I watched her. She was a small woman, but there was that strength about her that young mothers seem to possess. It was the ability to push and carry, hold tiny hands and monitor a million needs and movements, the Zen calm of producing a Ziploc bag of Cheerios from the front pocket of a diaper bag just as a little face starts to crumble, the way of molding an expression to communicate compassion and understanding to a toddler who could barely talk. It was musical, a symphony, and I found myself rapt for a moment. Then I turned my attention to the sea of cabs approaching…eight-thirty on a rainy Monday morning. Good luck. Not one light signaling availability, and a few anxious commuters looking for the same cab standing on corners all around. I resigned myself to being late, decided to grab a coffee. But as my eyes returned for a moment to the small family across the street, I felt a jangle of alarm. The mother was staring into the stroller, and the toddler, forgotten for maybe a second, had wandered into the street. There had been a brief lull in the flow of traffic, but the little boy, in his faded denim pants, red puffy overcoat, and little black stocking cap, was now directly in the path of an approaching white van. A glance to the van revealed a driver talking heatedly into his cell phone, seemingly oblivious to the road in front of him.
Everyone always says, “It’s all a blur.” But I remember every second. I was a shot fired from a gun, unthinking and with only one path available to me. I ran into the street. I remember the young mother glancing up from the stroller as people started to yell. I saw her face shift from confused to terrified. I saw the people on the street turning to stare; saw the little boy oblivious, toddling along toward me. I felt the hard concrete beneath my feet, heard the blood rushing in my ears. I was completely focused on the kid, who looked at me suddenly with a confused smile as I bent, arms outstretched, reaching for him as I ran. Everything slowed down but me; time warped and yawned but I was a rocket. I felt the warmth of his body, the softness of his coat as I scooped him up in one arm. I saw the grille of the van, felt the metal of the fender nick my foot as I dove both of us out of its path. I watched the van continue up First Avenue, never slowing, as if the whole drama that had played out before it had gone completely unnoticed by the driver. My body was tense, my teeth gritted with determination and fear, but I relaxed when I heard the little boy cry, saw him looking at me with terror. His mother ran over and grabbed him from me, sobbing into his little jacket. His tears turned from whimpers into a howl as if something primal told him that he’d just averted a great darkness. At least for now. People surrounded me, looked on with concern. Was I all right? Even then the answer still would have been yes.
So you’re thinking I did a good deed. Everything turned out all right. Not that big a deal. And I agree. Anyone
